Questions raised over city’s selective release of police videos in Tempe lake drowning

TEMPE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) -- The City of Tempe previously released body camera footage to the public on June 3, showing officers watching as 34-year-old Sean Bickings jumped into Tempe Town Lake. The city then provided transcripts in place of the drowning’s graphic video with an officer saying quote, ‘I’m not jumping in after you.’ The story made national headlines and spurred anger at a city council meeting. “City council, what we witnessed was one of the most inhumane displays of humanity from a police department since George Floyd,” said a man at the meeting. Now, new video released shows another officer’s perspective of the drowning.

The video released on Tuesday shows a third officer’s body camera video, previously unseen and unmentioned by the City of Tempe. The officer told others quoted in the transcript to watch Bickings as he went to get a boat. A little more than ten minutes later, the third officer cruised the lake, looking for Bickings. Video that was never released to the public until now.

“It makes me angry in it didn’t cast those officers in an accurate light, it also makes me question why? Was this done purposefully to accomplish that? Or was this simply incompetence and a failure on the city?” said Arizona Police Association Executive Director Joe Clure. Clure wonders why the video wasn’t released with the first one. “It makes no sense to me and you wonder if it was done to create that narrative,” he said.

He says the public and those officers deserve an explanation from the City of Tempe. “That is clearly an intregral part of the situation on that scenario and should have been made public, its a disservice to those police officers, its a disservice to the community,” said Clure.

Arizona’s Family reached out to the City of Tempe and asked why they didn’t release or mention the third officer’s body camera footage. The city sent a reply on Wednesday night.

On May 28, the on-duty Police PIO shared this information as part of the initial information to media outlets on the incident -- his communication included that, “Tempe Police and Fire then began searching the lake for him.” Within the video released by the city June 3, an officer can be heard at 10:48 stating there would be a PD boat response. The boat also was referenced within the transcript released June 3.

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